The invention relates, in general, to electrical cables, and, more particularly, to systems for repairing damaged cables, such as damaged underground power cables.
Cables, such as underground power cables, must be repaired when they are damaged by digging, for example. Prior art cable splicing devices in common use consist of a rubber insulating and voltage grading piece, and a crimp connector. When using such a prior art splice to electrically connect a first cable end to a second cable end, the rubber piece is slid over the first cable end, the first and second cable ends are crimped to first and second ends, respectively, of the crimp connector to form a splice area, and the rubber piece is then slid over the splice area.
One of the operative requirements of these prior art devices is that the rubber piece must tightly fit over the splice area for proper electrical insulation integrity and for watertightness. This tightness requirement causes difficulty in sliding the rubber piece from the first cable to over the splice area. The greater the length of the splice area, the further the rubber piece must be moved to cover the splice area, and consequently the greater the difficulty in joining the first cable end to the second cable end. When small sections of underground cable (three inches to a foot) are damaged by digging, it is customary to remove about four feet of cable in order to install two splices with an intermediate portion of cable therebetween. A single long splice is not used due to the difficulty in sliding a long rubber piece over a long splice area. Another problem associated with these prior art splicing devices is that rubber pieces of differing interior diameter are required for use with different diameter cable ends.
While the prior art includes several low power connectors, such as audio jacks, these would not be useful in high power applications due to a lack of proper voltage grading and insufficient current interchange areas. Further, these connectors would not be useful in underground applications as they are not watertight.